This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 2002-37615 filed on Jun. 29, 2002, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to refrigerators, and more particularly, to a refrigerator which is provided with a storage container to receive and store food therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a refrigerator generates cool air using an evaporator according to a refrigerating cycle, and supplies the cool air to a storage compartment to maintain the freshness of food stored in the storage compartment. A standard type refrigerator and a kimchi refrigerator are both refrigerating appliances.
A conventional refrigerator comprises a cabinet, a storage compartment and a door. The storage compartment is defined in the cabinet. The door is hinged to a portion of the cabinet to selectively open and close the storage compartment. The refrigerator further comprises electrical devices which perform a refrigerating cycle so as to supply cool air to the storage compartment.
FIG. 1 shows a storage container 1 which is provided in the conventional refrigerator. The storage container 1 has a box shape, and is open at a top to receive food therein. A lid 2 allows the open top of the storage container 1 to be closed. To store the food in the storage compartment of the refrigerator, the food is placed in the storage container 1, and the lid 2 is closed thereon.
However, the conventional refrigerator is provided so as to have the storage compartment maintain a predetermined storage temperature range. Accordingly, it is difficult to store various foods whose ideal storage temperature ranges are different from the predetermined storage temperature range in the storage compartment.
Accordingly, an aspect of the present invention is to provide a refrigerator which stores food having a storage temperature range that is different from a predetermined storage temperature range of a storage compartment.
Additional aspects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.
To achieve the above and/or other aspects of the present invention, there is provided a refrigerator comprising a cabinet which defines an appearance of the refrigerator, a storage compartment which is defined in the cabinet and has an opening, a door which selectively opens and closes the opening of the storage compartment, and a storage container which is removably received in the storage compartment and stores food, wherein the storage container has a double container structure and includes an outer container part which defines an appearance of the storage container and and has an opening, a lid which selectively opens and closes the opening of the outer container part, and an inner container part which is set in the outer container part.
The inner container part may be removably set in the outer container part.
The inner container part may have a lower heat-conductivity in comparison with the outer container part.
The inner container part may be sized smaller than the outer container part so as to form an air layer between the inner and outer container parts.
Hand insertion holes may be provided on corresponding sidewalls of the inner container part, so as to allow a user to easily take the inner container part out of the outer container part.
A plurality of discharging holes may be provided on a bottom plate which forms a bottom of the inner container part, so as to have water leaking from the food stored in the inner container part be discharged to the outer container part.
Projections may be formed on the bottom plate of the inner container part so as to be downwardly projected from areas around the discharging holes.
The outer container part may comprise a bottom plate, a sidewall which upwardly extends from the bottom plate of the outer container part, a rib which outwardly extends along an upper edge of the sidewall of the outer container part, handle mounting recesses formed on corresponding areas of the rib, handles mounted to the corresponding handle mounting recesses, and a sliding hole provided at each end of each of the handle mounting recesses
Each of the handles may comprise a grip part which elastically deforms in response to an external force acting thereon, sliding parts which outwardly extend from corresponding ends of the grip part and slidably move along the corresponding sliding holes, and a stop part provided at an end of each of the sliding parts to prevent removal of the sliding parts from the respective sliding holes.